where you have parents, a man of your merits should not have a home. I wish I could give it you. I am, my dear Sir, affectionately yours, "SAM. JOHNSON."

He now refreshed himself by an excursion to Oxford, of which the following short characteristical notice, in his own words, is preserved :

is now making tea for me. I have been in my gown ever since I came here.' It was, at my first coming, quite new and handsome. I have swum thrice, which I had disused for many years. I have proposed to Vansittart climbing over the wall, but he has refused me. And I have clapped my hands till they are sore, at Dr.

King's speech."

His negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been some time at sea, not pressed as has been supposed, but with his own consent, it appears from a letter to John Wilkes, Esq. from Dr. Smollett, that his master kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He once said, "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the

1 Lord Stowell informs me that he prided himself in being, during his visits to Oxford, accurately academic in all points; and he wore his gown almost ostentatiously.—Croker.

2 Dr. Robert Vansittart, of the ancient and respectable family of that name in Berkshire. He was eminent for learning and worth, and much esteemed by Dr. Johnson.

Dr. Robert Vansittart, LL.D., Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, and Recorder of Windsor. He was a senior fellow of All Souls, where, after he had given up the profession in London, he chiefly resided in a set of rooms, formerly the old library, which he had fitted up in the Gothic style, and where he died about 1794. He was remarkable for his good humour and inoffensive wit, and a great favourite on the Oxford circuit. He was tall and very thin; and the bar gave the name of Counsellor Van to a sharp-pointed rock on the Wye, which still retains the name. He was the elder brother of Mr. Henry Vansittart, governor of Bengal, father of the present Lord Bexley, to whom I am indebted for the above particulars relative to his uncle.-Croker.

3 At the installation of the Earl of Westmoreland as chancellor of the university, July 7, 1759.-Croker.

• Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed., p. 126.

chance of being drowned." And at another time, “A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company." 1 The letter was as follows:

"DEAR SIR,

66 Chelsea, 16th March, 1759.

"I am again your petitioner, in behalf of that great CHAM2 of literature, Samuel Johnson. His black servant, whose name is Francis Barber, has been pressed on board the Stag frigate, Captain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great distress. He says the boy is a sickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his Majesty's service. You know what matter of animosity the said Johnson has against you: and I dare say you desire no other opportunity of resenting it, than that of laying him under an obligation. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on this occasion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I gave him to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes, who, perhaps, by his interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be superfluous to say more on this subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, dear Sir, your affectionate, obliged, humble servant, "T. SMOLLETT."

Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occasions has acted, as a private gentleman, with most polite liberality, applied to his friend Sir George Hay, then one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; and Francis Barber was discharged, as he has told me, without any wish of his own. He found his old master in Chambers in the Inner Temple, and returned to his service. What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view this

1

1 Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed., p. 251.

2 In my first edition this word was printed Chum, as it appears in one of Mr. Wilkes's Miscellanies, and I animadverted on Dr. Smollett's ignorance; for which let me propitiate the manes of that ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUM was certainly a mistaken reading for CHAM, the title of the Sovereign of Tartary, which is well applied to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature; and was an epithet familiar to Smollett. See Roderick Random, chap. lvi. For this correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquirements accord well with his respectable pedigree of Temple.

year, I have not discovered; but that he meditated one of some sort, is clear from his private devotions, in which we find [24th March] "the change of outward things which I am now to make;" and, "Grant me the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that the course which I am now beginning may proceed according to thy laws, and end in the enjoyment of thy favour." But he did not, in fact, make any external or visible change.

At this time, there being a competition among the architects of London to be employed in the building of Blackfriars Bridge, a question was very warmly agitated whether semicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the design offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. Johnson's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne;' and after being

1 Sir John Hawkins has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of "proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and adjusted by nature-masculine and feminine—in a man, sesquioctave of the head, and in a woman sesquinonal; nor has he failed to introduce a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to correspond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. To follow the knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, only made a few remarks upon his statement.

He seems to exult in having detected Johnson in procuring, "from a person eminently skilled in mathematics and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches." Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have acted more wisely. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the semicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little versed in mixed and practical mechanics. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholastic father of all the great engineers which this country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly in favour of the elliptical arch. It is ungraciously suggested, that Johnson's motive for opposing Mr. Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North Britain; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and so far was he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he after

at considerable pains to study the subject, he wrote three several letters in the "Gazeteer," in opposition to his plan.

If it should be remarked that this was a controversy which lay quite out of Johnson's way, let it be remembered, that, after all, his employing his powers of reasoning and eloquence upon a subject which he had studied on the moment, is not more strange than what we often observe in lawyers, who, as Quicquid agunt homines is the matter of lawsuits, are sometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or science, of which they understood nothing till their brief was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it. In like manner, members of the legislature frequently introduce and expatiate upon subjects of which they have informed themselves for the occasion.

In 1760 he wrote An Address of the Painters to George III. on his Accession to the Throne of these Kingdoms," † which

66

wards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars Bridge, calling it an edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated their own disgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners." Whoever has contemplated, placido lumine, this stately, elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an effect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, must wonder at such unjust and ill-tempered censure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good taste, whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of London. As to the stability of the fabric, it is certain that the city of London took every precaution to have the best Portland stone for it; but as this is to be found in the quarries belonging to the public, under the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, it so happened that parliamentary interest, which is often the bane of fair pursuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, it is well known that not only has Blackfriars Bridge never sunk either in its foundation or in its arches, which were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of severe frosts have been already, in some measure, repaired with sounder stone, and every necessary renewal can be completed at a moderate expense.

This "stately, elegant, and airy structure," lasted till about 1866, when its condition being discovered to be dangerous, its removal was resolved on. The new Blackfriars Bridge, built from the designs of Mr. Page, the architect of Westminster Bridge, was opened by Her Majesty in 1869.-Editor.

no monarch ever ascended with more sincere congratulations from his people. Two generations of foreign princes had prepared their minds to rejoice in having again a king who gloried in being "born a Briton." He also wrote for Mr. Baretti the Dedication + of his Italian and English Dictionary, to the Marquis of Abreu, then Envoy-Extraordinary from Spain at the Court of Great Britain.

Johnson was now either very idle, or very busy with his Shakspeare; for I can find no other public composition by him except an Introduction to the Proceedings of the Committee for Clothing the French Prisoners;* one of the many proofs that he was ever awake to the calls of humanity; and an account which he gave in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of Mr. Tytler's acute and able vindication of Mary Queen of Scots. The generosity of Johnson's feelings shines forth in the following sentence:

*

"It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? Yet there remains still among us, not wholly extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right in opposition to fashion."

In this year I have not discovered a single private letter written by him to any of his friends. It should seem, however, that he had at this period a floating intention of writing a history of the recent and wonderful successes of the British arms in all quarters of the globe; for among his resolutions or memorandums, September 18, there is, "Send for books for Hist. of War." How much is it to be regretted that this intention

1 "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton." -George III.'s first Speech to his Parliament.—Croker.

2 Prayers and Meditations, p. 42.

The following memorandum, made on his birthday in this year, may be quoted as an example of the rules and resolutions which he was in the habit of making, for the guidance of his moral conduct and literary studies: "Sept. 18. Resolved, D (eo) j (uvante).

To combat notions of obligation: